PTAB Issues Three New Precedential Opinions
The PTAB designated three decisions as precedential this week (in addition to two earlier this month), indicating that the PTO may be in the process of designating precedential opinions on a number of issues, in line with revised Standard Operating Procedure 2 for designating precedential and informative decisions.
Invention by "Another": Duncan Parking Technologies, Inc. v. IPS Group, Inc., Appeal No. 2018-1205, -1360 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 31, 2019)
IPS Group Inc. ("IPS") appealed from two decisions of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granting summary judgment of non-infringement of U.S. Patents 8,595,054 and 7,854,310. Duncan Parking Technologies Inc. ("DPT") appealed from a related decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("the Board") in an inter partes review holding that claims 1–5 and 7–10 of the '310 patent were not shown to be unpatentable as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
PTAB Precedential Opinion Panel Clarifies Issue Joinder Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(c)
In the first case to be taken up by the PTAB's Precedential Opinion Panel (POP), Director Iancu, Commissioner Hirshfeld, and then Acting Chief Judge Boalick (now appointed) have determined that, under appropriate and limited circumstances, a petitioner may join its own previously-instituted IPR to request joinder and institution of new issues.
Motions to Amend: Is the PTAB's Lectrosonics Order Just of Western Digital?
Spring gardening season has begun and the USPTO is once again planting its Motion to Amend ("MTA") seeds. In a substantial redux of Western Digital Corporation v. Spex Technologies, IPR2018-00082, -00084, paper 13, the PTAB this past week designated paper 15 of Lectrosonics v. Zaxcom, IPR2018-01129, 01130("Lectrosonics Order") as an informative decision.
No More IPRs From Generic Drug Makers?
The USPTO argues that a petitioner who has received a favorable final written decision in an IPR is estopped from reusing the same winning argument in a district court.
Bioisosterism, by Itself, May Not be Sufficient Motivation to Modify a Lead Compound
In the recent decision, Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Research Corporation Technologies, Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's finding that Claims 8 to 13 of U.S. Reissue Patent 38,551 ("the '551 patent") owned by Research Corporation Technologies, Inc. ("RCT") are not unpatentable.
Realtime Data, LLC, v. Iancu: No Requirement to Make Any Finding of a Motivation to Combine Two References When a Claim is Invalid as Being Obvious Over a Single Reference
The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent and Trademark Appeal Board's (PTAB) determination that all of the challenged claims of Realtime's U.S. Patent 6,597,812 ("the ‘812 patent") would have been obvious over the prior art.
PTAB Rules That Section 101 Rejections Are Proper When Raised As Part Of An IPR Motion To Amend
It is quite common for IPR petitioners to raise § 112 defenses in opposition to a motion to amend filed by the patent owner. What's less common is for the petitioner to argue that the proposed amended claims fail to recite patentable subject matter under § 101.